The Weekly paper of the New Communist Party of Britain
Week commencing 1st February 2019

Hands off Venezuela!

By New Worker correspondent

US IMPERIALISM has stepped up its attempts to overthrow the Chavismo government in Venezuela. A venal pawn has proclaimed himself as “interim president” with the support of Anglo-American and Franco-German imperialism. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro says that Trump has ordered the Colombian government and mafia to kill him. But Venezuela’s armed forces have pledged full support to the Maduro government, dealing a significant blow to the American effort to establish a parallel puppet regime and get their greedy hands on Venezuela’s oil.

Meanwhile American efforts to win United Nations (UN) and Organisation of American States (OAS) support for their Venezuelan lackey have failed. Russia and People’s China are both backing Venezuela. So are Democratic Korea, Cuba, Belarus, Syria, Iran and South Africa. Bolivia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Suriname are all backing the legitimate Venezuelan government, and Turkey has surprisingly broken ranks with NATO to support the Maduro government.

Now the Americans are stepping up their economic war against the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. This week the US government announced new sanctions against PDVSA, Venezuela’s nationalised oil company. These sanctions freeze Venezuela’s funds. They are intended to force a transfer of control of the company to the right-wing opposition forces, led by
Juan Guaidó, who now calls himself “interim president”.
Guaidó is an engineer who studied in America and in Venezuela’s elite business school. He helped set up the reactionary Popular Will Party that provoked anti-government riots in 2014, which led to 4,000 arrests and 43 deaths.

He is also the president of the National Assembly, an illegitimate body that Venezuela’s Supreme Court has ruled, since 2016, to be in contempt of court. The legislature and all its acts have been declared “null and void” by the Supreme Court.
released
Guaidó first declared himself interim president on 11th January and was arrested two days later by intelligence officers speedily exposed as reactionaries who hoped the arrest would trigger a violent response on the streets. He was almost immediately released, apparently on Maduro’s orders.

On the diplomatic front the Americans failed to win support at the OAS when a motion supporting the puppet president was rejected by a majority of member states. The OAS is an organisation that has been dominated by US imperialism throughout its existence; but only 16 out of the 34 OAS countries supported the US-sponsored statement whilst 18 others rejected it.
They also fared badly at the UN. An imperialist call to recognise Guaidó’s bogus claim was defeated on the Security Council, 19 of the 35 countries came out against US interference in Venezuela. The Cuban representative reminded the Council of the many dictatorships US imperialism imposed on Latin American countries in the 20th century and stressed the right of national sovereignty for the nations of the hemisphere. Cuba also highlighted the role that the US government has played in previous attempts to overthrow Bolivarian rule specifically.
Last week President Nicolas Maduro announced that Venezuela was breaking off diplomatic relations with the USA and kicking out all their diplomats after accusing the Trump administration of attempting to stage a coup against him.

This followed US President Donald Trump’s recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the interim president of the country in a gross violation of the Venezuelan Constitution.

“They went too far. I have decided to break all diplomatic and political relations with the imperialist government
of the United States. Out! They can all leave,” Maduro said, stressing that the US imperialists want to regain control over Venezuela’s vast resources of oil, gas and gold. “These do not belong to you, they belong to the sovereign people of Venezuela.”.

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